1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to apparatus for extracting juice from fruit, and more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved extractor for extracting juice from citrus fruits.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The complete commercial processing of citrus fruit to obtain the juice therefrom today includes the dejuicing and discharging of the pulp and internal membranes of the fruit, the breaking up and ejecting of the peel, the extracting and collecting of the peel oil, and the separate extracting and collecting of the fruit juice. All of the above operations can be performed by the fruit juice extractor disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 2,649,730 to J. M. Hait and U.S. Pat. No. 2,780,988 to Wilber C. Belk et al.
In the extractor disclosed in the Belk et al patent, a whole unpeeled citrus fruit, for example, an orange, is placed between two cups, each of which is formed by a plurality of circumferentially spaced fingers and one of which is provided with a passage to allow discharge of juice and pulp from the fruit. The fingers of the upper and lower cups are arranged in an interdigitating relationship so that as cups are brought together, the cavity between the cups is progressively reduced to squeeze the juice from a fruit within the cavity. The peel of the fruit is shredded and ejected through an annular opening adjacent to the upper central portion of the upper cup. The juice-bearing material of the fruit is forced downwardly through the passage in the lower cup and into a perforated strainer tube that communicates with the lower cup. As the fruit is squeezed between the cups, an orifice tube is forced upwardly within the strainer tube to exert pressure on the juice-bearing material within the strainer tube to express the juice through the perforations therein. The juice expressed through the strainer tube is collected within a sump or manifold which extends transversely of the machine under the several lower cup assemblies.
The interdigitating cup type of juice extractor has been found to perform generally satisfactorily to extract a single grade of juice from a citrus fruit. However, the prior art citrus fruit juice extractors have not included juice collection systems that are capable of separating the extracted juice into differing grades. For example, the prior art extractors have not been adapted to separate the extracted juice into two juice components containing differing quantities of minute solid citrus material, such as juice sacs, suspended in the juice, or into two components of different grades wherein one component is of a lower grade in that it contains more minute membrane material or embryonic seeds suspended therein.